THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN grabs readers by the throat and doesn’t let go—from its first page to its cinematic finale, this stunning launch to Hutchison’s Collector Trilogy will thrill and disturb even the most seasoned crime reader. Fans of serial killer thrillers will be hooked on the story’s disturbed villain; fans of police procedurals will love the author’s measured, masterful plotting. Come for this book’s stunning cover, stay for the brutal, inventive crimes at its core; with the final installment in this trilogy releasing in May 2018, now is the perfect time to enter Hutchison’s dark and twisted world.
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January 2018 Wrap-Up
Happy 2018, reader!! Today marks my first “Monthly Wrap Up” post of the new year. As a little refresher, these posts will provide you with a rundown of my reads, reviews, and additional blog content from the past month on Crime by the Book! You'll also find stats from my month in reading, and my pick for "favorite read of the month" here, too. Happy reading!
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Book Excerpt: THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER by Sara Blaedel
Denmark’s Queen of Crime launches a new series in the US next week with THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER (on sale February 6th) - and thanks to Grand Central, I’m thrilled to give CBTB readers an early chance to read the first two chapters from it! Blaedel, best known for her detective novels featuring Louise Rick, now branches out into a very different style of suspense writing—THE UNDERTAKER’S DAUGHTER shifts focus from solving crimes with Louise Rick to unraveling the family secrets of Ilka Jensen, a Danish woman with family in the US.
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Book Review: THIS IS HOW IT ENDS by Eva Dolan
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS (on sale 3/13/18) will suit readers looking for a crime book that shifts focus away from the crime at its core and towards the social and cultural tensions that precipitated it—and the interpersonal fallout that it, in turn, precipitates. Thought-provoking and gritty, this socially-aware crime novel delivered one of my more conflicted reading experiences in recent memory. Writing this review has been a challenge precisely because there were just as many things I enjoyed about this book as there were qualities that frustrated me and held me back from fully sinking into this read.
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CBTB's Essential Nordic Noir
Today’s blog post details my picks for essential Nordic Noir reads — aka the authors whose works you should check out to see if this crime fiction sub-genre is for you. This is by no means an exhaustive list - there are tons of fantastic crime writers hailing from Scandinavia - but it’s a great place to start if you’ve never tried Scandinavian crime fiction before, or if you’re trying to expand your Nordic Noir collection!
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